101 Improv Games for Children and Adults: A Smart Fun Book for Ages 5 and Up

Preface

I remember my first introduction to improv clearly. I’d like to say it feels like yesterday, but it was nowhere near yesterday.

I was a sophomore in high school, sitting in a beginning drama class. I had no idea I would like acting—I only took the class because my dad told me to. We had just moved, and I was depressed about leaving behind all of my friends. My dad said that lots of outgoing kids would be in the drama class. In short, he was trying to find a way to help his son make some new friends.

So there I was. The teacher said that we were going to do something called improv. There was no real introduction. The teacher just picked a few students, myself among them, and said, You’re all dogs in a dog pound. Soon all of the students were impersonating dogs, barking, howling, and panting.

Something struck me. I leaned to one of the other dogs and said, I’m breaking out of here tonight. Are you with me? The other dogs looked at this talking dog for a moment, and then realized that they could be just like me. Soon we had all put together a tight, and funny, plan to escape. The energy of that moment has stuck with me to this day.

Soon I changed from a guy who only wanted to be a sports writer to one who lives for the stage. Oh, I’ve tried to pull away. I even went to the University of Utah on a journalism scholarship and became the assistant sports information director. But if you’re reading this book, you know theater is something you can never break away from. In 1994 I started an improv comedy troupe now known as Quick Wits. We specialize in quick, fun, in-your-face improv. I’ve performed improv almost every weekend for nine years, and I never get tired of it. And now I’m able to express my love for improv in this book. If only a part of my enthusiasm and passion for this art form rub off on you—as opposed to the ink—I’ll be happy. And you’ll have a lot of fun.

So what should you expect to find between the covers of this book?

Part One examines the basics of improv. The first few sections explain what improv is, where it came from, and why it’s important. Next comes a special section on teaching improv to children. The final, and most important, section in Part One outlines some rules and tips for improv beginners. These rules are the building blocks improvisers can use to create a scene from nothing. Even if you are a seasoned improviser, I recommend you at least glance over these rules. After ten years of performing I find that I can always learn something new.

Part Two contains the games. Our Quick Wits playbook currently has over 400 games that we have played on our stage, so picking 101 of them was a real chore. I’ve chosen a mixed bag of games for beginning, intermediate, and advanced players. There are even a few near-impossible games to give you a full overview.

Part Three describes some of the advanced techniques we use in Quick Wits to give each scene an added punch. We’ll also examine how to bend many of the rules I laid out in the Beginners’ section. It’s all designed to help experienced improvisers think outside the Black Box.

Finally, in Part Four, we look at some of the elements that go into creating a successful improv show. You’ll learn how to assemble a troupe, conduct rehearsals, and put together a show. I’ll also discuss the essential role of the emcee.

I hope you’ll enjoy the journey. My journey has taken me from the boy in high school to a veteran with more than twenty-three straight years of performing onstage. In all those years I have never gone more than three months without being involved in some type of show. While onstage I have had the great fortune to meet my beautiful wife, make some of the most loyal friends anyone could ask for, and even act with my three children. I’ve acted in movies, hosted a children’s television show for two years, worked in radio for twelve years, owned theaters, and had more fun than should be allowed.

Not bad for a guy who is still doing nothing more than planning his escape from the dog pound.

Bob Bedore

February 2003

For easy reading we have alternated use of the male and female pronouns. Of course, every he also includes she, and vice versa.

Introduction The Basics

What Is Improv?

Improv is producing something onstage from little more than a suggestion and your own imagination. Improvisers build a scene from nothing. Characters interact, solve problems, love, hate, and basically live their lives in a heartbeat. Improv characters are like flies—they spend their short life span beating their wings as fast as they can and living as if they’ll go forever, not really knowing that their time is short.

For actors, improv is the ultimate teaching tool. Acting is all about reacting—responding naturally to what has been said or done onstage. Since acting is reacting, there is nothing that will build your acting skills faster than improv. In a scripted scene your character’s reactions have already been mapped out. In an improv scene it’s all up to you. The actor has complete control over every action and thought of her character—there’s no director and no writer. Do you want to have your character suddenly open a portal to another dimension and climb through? You can. An improv scene can be played again and again with the same setup, but one word can change the scene in ways no one could have imagined. It’s a rush that is hard to explain until you’ve done it.

Improv is like jumping out of an airplane and just grabbing whatever parachute happens to be lying around. You don’t know if you’ve grabbed a good one or not. You don’t even know if you’ve actually grabbed a chute—it could be someone’s backpack. The point is: You’ve jumped, and now you’re going along for the ride.

Improv is also the ultimate team-building exercise. I use it in my motivational speaking to show what people can create by listening and reacting. If an improv scene flops, everyone onstage flops equally. Knowing that everyone must go down with the ship is a powerful motivation for people to work together. There are no great solo improv actors—they’re stand-up comedians. Seeing everyone come together and begin to think as if with one mind is one of the most exciting parts of improv.

Where Did Improv Come From?

Now there’s a tough question. I would have to say that cavemen started the form. With nothing more than a few grunts and gestures they were able to tell the story of a great hunt. And knowing human nature, I’m sure that those stories were exaggerated a bit.

They acted out the characters of the hunter and the hunted. They expressed emotion. There was action. There was a beginning, a middle, and an end. It was a scene, and it was performed in front of an audience of enthralled onlookers.

I would give just about anything to be able to watch one of those performances. There must have been some master storytellers in prehistoric times. But, alas, no one will ever know of the great ones. All we have left of them are a few cave drawings and some skulls in the ground. Our loss.

Commedia dell’Arte

Many believe that modern improv descends from commedia dell’arte. This art form was first seen in Tuscany around 1550. Although its exact origins are hard to trace, commedia dell’arte was rooted in the masked comedies of ancient Rome. Commedia dell’arte used a combination of improvised dialog, a few stock speeches, mime, acrobatics, and broad humor to reach its audiences. It influenced the performing arts all over Europe, remaining popular from the Renaissance through the eighteenth century. Even William Shakespeare used commedia dell’arte characters in his comedies. Later, commedia dell’arte started to evolve into other forms, such as vaudeville. This theater style, with its slapstick humor and variety show format, became popular in North America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Vaudeville theater is a direct descendant of commedia dell’arte. For example, the popular vaudeville doctor skits owe everything to the commedia dell’arte character Dottore, the doctor. Our modern day clowns also come from the same family tree.

Perhaps the most important character in commedia dell’arte is Zanni, the servant. This was the one character who spoke directly to the audience. The performer who played Zanni was often the most talented of the troupe, for he had to be a skillful acrobat and musician as well as an actor and comedian. To this day the word zany (derived from Zanni) describes wild comedy.

An entire book could be written about commedia dell’arte—and in fact many have been. I would suggest looking into them for more on this fascinating form. You can also pick up a copy of Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, a fun commedia dell’arte play.

Modern Improv

Improvisation has been part of theater in one form or another throughout history, but the improv form we enjoy today grew directly from children’s games. In Chicago during the Great Depression of the 1930s, an actor and drama teacher named Viola Spolin developed a system of theater games for children. These games were designed to use child’s play to stimulate imagination and self-expression. Spolin did not originally intend these games to be performed for an audience; they were meant to be classroom exercises. Spolin’s theater games are the forerunners of modern improv, and many of the games she invented are still played today.

It wasn’t until Spolin’s son, Paul Sills, started tinkering with the games in the 1950s that improv started to come to the stage. He worked with his mother and others to create a staged show that grew in popularity in the Chicago area. The show, called The Compass, continued to expand and in 1959 became one of improv’s best-known organizations, Second City.

One of the men who helped Second City become the major force it remains today was Del Close. Close joined in 1960 and later became the driving force for the troupe. He devoted much of his life to the craft and championed long-form improv. A long-form improv is a collection of scenes that look at the same suggestion from different angles. It is a free-form style, with no time limit. Close’s legacy will forever be tied to The Harold, a complex style of long-form that even he admits has a strange name.

While Chicago was enjoying its improv renaissance in the 1960s, a native of England was making his own noise in Canada. A professor at the University of Calgary, Keith Johnstone noticed that theater was not reaching the masses. He wanted to create a show that appealed to the same people who enjoyed other activities, like sporting events. Not unlike Shakespeare in his day, Johnstone wanted to reach the common man with art. His creation, Theatresports, combines improv games with a scoring system, adding the mix of competition to the silliness onstage.

There isn’t a troupe performing today that doesn’t owe at least a nod of thanks to these pioneers.

My Own History in Improv

I first came to improv as a stand-up comedian. A promoter had us do improv from time to time to fill empty spots (when other acts fell through and we needed to fill time). We never tried to be a troupe, but it was by doing this that I learned how to do some improv in front of a crowd. My own improv troupe, Quick Wits, began in 1994. I was opening the Off Broadway Theatre in Salt Lake City and wanted to do something different. There was no improv in Salt Lake City at the time, and all of the actors were pretty nervous about trying this. Oddly enough, the name Quick Wits was originally meant to be a temporary name. I never came up with a name I liked more, and after nine years the name Quick Wits basically stands for improv in Salt Lake. I’m glad I never changed it.

We went through different formats until finally settling on the competitive format in 1996. Salt Lake had just been awarded the 2002 Winter Olympics, and I came up with OlympWits as a means to capitalize on this. The format took off, and we’ve done it that way since. Two teams of three actors compete to see who can make the audience laugh most. The people in the audience are the judges, and they score the games. Even so, the teams’ real goal is not to win, but to give the audience a good time. We want the people paying to see us to be the real winners. (I know, it’s sappy.)

I’ve performed in a Quick Wits show almost every weekend for the past nine years and have gotten excited for each and every one. The other day I threw my back out and couldn’t stand. I was actually in a great deal of pain, and my only thought was that I wasn’t going to get to play that night.

Our style is fast and in-your-face. When you come to Quick Wits, you know that laughs are going to come one right after another. Even if a skit doesn’t go well, the bits that the actors do between the skits will make you laugh. These actors will do whatever it takes to make the audience laugh. We listen to the audience and notice what gets a positive reaction, so, without knowing it, the audience decides what we do. It’s a true have it your way experience—fast-food comedy.

Quick Wits was the only improv in town for a while. Then people started seeing how much fun it was and how easy it looked. Troupes started springing up all over the place. Eventually, on any given weekend night you could catch five or six different troupes in a thirty-mile radius—not bad for a city that doesn’t usually make a blip on the cultural radar. In a way, I’ve created my own competition, but I don’t worry. In fact, I love to see the other troupes and hope that someday little old Salt Lake will be as well known for improv as Chicago or Los Angeles.

And the Future?

That’s where you come in. By showing an interest in improv, and working to pass it on, you are keeping it alive.

Why Improv?

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Why improv? Why indeed.

I’ve taught improv at almost every level, from preschool all the way to adults. The kids are great. They have a built-in love for imagination and exploration. Sometimes it’s the adults who have forgotten where they come from. When I visit university classes, I’m often hit with the same questions: What is the point of playing games and generally acting like a fool onstage? Where is the scene work? Where is the character development? Where is the serious actor?

I hate that kind of question. It always makes me feel like some sort of court jester. Improvisers are fine for a laugh, but make way for the serious actors. Blah! As an actor who has done, and continues to do, Shakespeare and loves to do serious dramatic work, I want to pass this one point on.

Not only is improv just as real as serious acting, but more can be learned about the acting craft in improv than in just about any other technique I’ve studied. And more importantly, more can be learned about yourself.

Improv has all kinds of benefits, and not only for actors.

Improv teaches you to adapt. I remember another defining moment in high school. We were performing The Man Who Came to Dinner, and the lights went